Small Talk could the one thing standing between you and the love of your life - here is how to move beyond it to the next stage of your relationship

Chatting about random, unimportant, meaningless things like the weather is an acceptable icebreaker.
It's a great way to initiate a conversation with someone you just met at a wedding, event, e.t.c.
While this might work in the beginning, it is not what you need to build intimate romantic relationships.

Small talk is great — when you meet a cute girl or guy at a party, restaurant or when you are chatting with a stranger online. But it is important to move beyond this stage as quickly as possible when you met someone you like.

Getting stuck on small talk has been known to ruin many great new connections, strangling what little spark you have until the continuous uncomfortable conversations forces one person to leave.

This is why you need to move to deeper, emotionally-focused, long-lasting conversations sooner rather than later to avoid getting stuck in this small talk zone.

You don't want to get stuck talking about boring topics like the weather for the rest of your life Pulse Nigeria

Unlike the boring ‘How are you?, Have you eaten’ questions that go nowhere, having more meaningful conversations can actually help you forge an intimate connection and establish a deeper relationship.

Science agrees as researchers found that the happiest participants in a study involving over 20,000 recorded conversations had twice as many genuine and deep talks as the unhappiest participants.

How to ditch the small talk and move on to the next step of your relationship

To get rid of meaningless conversations and move on to the next step of your relationship, start by asking open-ended questions. These questions cannot be adequately answered with just “yes” or “no” unlike small talk which usually prompt simple, quick responses.

Open-ended questions usually look like this:

Tell me about your day or tell me about your memorable experience…..
How did you become the amazing person you are today or how did your trip go….
What’s it like to be the first child or what's it like to be a fashion designer…

Asking open-ended questions is the key to having great, interesting conversations that will take things to the next level ece-auto-gen

ALSO READ: 14 ways to skip shallow small talk and have deep conversations

Make sure you are sincerely interested. There is no point ditching small talk if you are not genuinely interested. This interest will make you follow up with deeper, better questions.

Next, push yourself to open up by talking about meaningful things you are passionate about. Emotions are how we connect not talking about the weather or having the same dry small talk. So, talk about meaningful topics and be sure to express your feelings. They will be more likely to open up themselves if you lead by example.

The basic key to ditching small talk and moving from strangers to lovers is to be genuinely interested, pay attention to details and be vulnerable enough to share a good amount of information about yourself.

Remember to avoid controversial or sensitive questions until you get to really know the person.